Shared contacts in Outlook and Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 has four built-in ways to share contacts in Outlook: public folder contacts, a shared mailbox, a contact folder shared by one user, and contact lists. They work in Outlook on the desktop to varying degrees, but none of them puts the shared list into the phone’s own contacts, so incoming calls show only a number.

1. Public folder contacts

A public folder of the Contacts type gives the whole organisation one list. Outlook for Windows and Outlook for Mac can open it, and Outlook on the web can reach it once the folder is added to Favorites. Outlook for iOS and Android do not connect to public folders, and the phone’s contacts never see them.

It suits a central list that a few people maintain and everyone reads at their desk.

2. Contacts in a shared mailbox

Microsoft’s own guide to a shared contact list for a whole organisation is a shared mailbox. Create it in the Microsoft 365 admin center or the Exchange admin center and give a security group Full Access. In classic Outlook for Windows, the mailbox’s contacts folder then appears by itself under My Contacts.

The limits are documented by Microsoft. The shared contacts cannot be opened in Outlook on the web or in new Outlook for Windows. Exchange ActiveSync, which the phone’s own Exchange account uses, does not support shared mailboxes. And everyone with Full Access can also read the mailbox’s email.

3. A shared contact folder

In classic Outlook a user can share a contact folder: in People, select the folder, then Home › Share Contacts, and send the invitation. The recipient opens it with Open this Contacts folder. Sharing a contact folder is not possible from Outlook on the web.

The folder stays in the owner’s mailbox. It shows up next to the recipient’s own contacts in Outlook, but it is not part of the recipient’s Contacts folder, so it does not reach the phone.

4. Contact lists

A contact list (contact group) collects addresses so you can email a group in one go. It is stored in the contacts of the person who made it. Others get a copy when it is sent to them, and that copy is not updated when the original changes. It is built for sending mail to a group.

5. What none of them do

Phones. The phone syncs the Contacts folder in the user’s own mailbox. Public folders, other people’s folders and shared mailboxes are outside that.
New Outlook and Outlook on the web. Shared mailbox contacts cannot be opened there.
Upkeep. Each method needs someone to grant access when people join and to keep the list current.